


Letters From Somnus

by rywned



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 14:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15051023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rywned/pseuds/rywned
Summary: The past has the funniest ways of rearing its head, always seeming to pull up the memories that one would much sooner forget. A relic from Ardyn's own lifetime is pulled free from the depths of ancient ruins, forcing him to confront a part of his history that he thought would remain buried forever.





	Letters From Somnus

Old artefacts from the times of Solheim were becoming rarer and rarer finds the more time went on, creating something of a buzz amongst the Niflheim researchers whenever anything was brought back, regardless of how unimportant to their goal it seemed. Boards would immediately be cleared, papers pinned to walls ripped down in a feverish frenzy to make room for new theories, new lines of inquest beginning that would ultimately end up leading nowhere. For some reason it brought Ardyn a great deal of joy, watching their futile efforts smugly with the knowledge they would gain nothing of real use. Occasionally he would saunter into the labs and page through the preserved books, much to the dismay of the researchers who begged him not to just yet, managing to chuckle to himself as he dredged up memories of the first time he had read them as a child and a young man. They were a brief look back into the life he had left behind, but nothing more. He had no personal interest in the discarded belongings of those who had scorned him.

At least he hadn’t until they had brought back the chest. A great blackened thing made from a thick wood that didn’t even look like it could be opened; there were no grooves that indicated a lid, no visible lock, not even any decoration save for a faded carving of a longsword. The moment he had lain eyes upon the mark, Ardyn had known immediately what the chest was and who it had belonged to. How could he not? He had owned its twin in his youth, a gift from his grandfather on his fifteenth birthday. Part of him was surprised it had managed to survive after so long, but then perhaps it had been bold of him to assume that it would have also been destroyed alongside his own and anything else that showed he had ever existed.

For the time being, he pushed all thoughts of it out of his mind. They had found his younger brother’s chest, so what? It was simply another useless relic of a time long passed, a lump of wood that was of no use to anyone except maybe as a footrest. Ardyn recalled that Somnus had claimed he had only ever stored his most personal private items within, items he had teased him about, assuming they were nothing more than old toys he’d grown far too attached to to ever get rid of as they’d grown up. He had never bothered looking inside to check, he’d already pinched the figurines from Somnus’ collection that he had wanted at the time.

Days passed and there was no progress made on a way to open the chest up. Ardyn passed by multiple times to keep an eye on their efforts, watching as they tried everything from scanning it for hidden panels, exposing it to extreme heat and cold, even straight up smacking it with the back of a broken chair. One of them had mentioned seeking permission from their superiors to push it down a large flight of stairs to see if that would do anything; after all they’d only need a few fragments of the wood for analysis now that they had scanned the entire thing. It was the contents they were craving, whatever was within would provide a few more days of madness before they moved onto the next thing. Ardyn pondered telling them to simply throw it away and to put their knowledge to better use, but he found himself growing curious. To see if they could even manage in opening it without access to the old magic that kept it sealed, and to see just what it was that Somnus had hidden away.

He shook himself and moved on, deciding to leave all thoughts of the damned thing behind. They followed him, seeping into his mind and nipping away at his sanity hour by hour. By the time another week had passed, he was desperate. Ardyn _needed_ to know what lay within, he _needed_ to know what Somnus had stored away for safe keeping. He was the elder of the two, surely it was his duty to be a snoop and go through his brother’s items whenever he wanted?

Ardyn’s gaze slid down to the clock that sat on his desk, fingers trailing over the surface of the paper plane that rested in his hands. Four twenty-three in the morning. His head turned towards the documents that lay scattered about on his desk. Some of them had been read thoroughly, others had been skimmed. Most had been folded into a variety of shapes or crumpled and thrown into the bin on the other side of his office. He hadn’t done any actual work in well over three hours, and highly doubted that there would be more than three people still lingering about the labs at this time of morning. Resigning himself to his fate, Ardyn swung his legs back onto the floor and made his way over to the door. Now was as good a time as any to go and snatch up the chest and finally put this whole mess to rest.

Aside from the infantry that stood rigid at their posts, the hallways were almost entirely deserted. Occasionally he would come across a small cluster of lab assistants sitting slumped against one another and struggling to remain conscious, miraculously managing to keep their half empty cups upright. One of them was managing to successfully sleep standing up against one of the vending machines, her face smushed against the glass and finger still pressing the button even though her chosen snack had long since dropped. The lightest of pushes to her shoulder was all it took for her to fall, Ardyn marvelling at how smoothly she slid off and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, her slumber not even vaguely disturbed.

“Perhaps we have been studying the wrong wonders of this world,” he muttered to himself as he stepped over her.

Just as he had expected, the lab was dead except for one lone researcher that sat low in his chair, feet up on his desk, an analysis report draped over his face and a growing stain on his coat, coffee dripping from it into a puddle on the floor after his mug had tipped over in his lap. Once in a while he would reach up under the papers to rub at his nose before returning to snoring away, but otherwise did not stir. If he were quick enough, perhaps Ardyn would be able to return in time to watch Verstael rip into this team for daring to fall asleep on the job. It would certainly put a smile on his face, but for now that would have to wait.

There was a rather odd sensation that began to form as he approached the chest, an almost tight feeling in his stomach. A knot. Nervous? He? It was certainly a bizarre concept, but not entirely impossible he supposed. He knelt down before it, feeling the thrum of ancient Lucis Caelum magic before he even reached out to it. There was some resistance when he eventually did, as if it could sense that something wasn’t quite right and would rather he stayed away. He pushed through regardless and smoothed his thumb over the bumps and cuts in the wood, amazed that even after all it had been through, it hadn’t splintered. There was another air to it as well; Somnus, almost as if he were sitting there with him in that moment. Ardyn was somewhat satisfied simply by being this close to it, but only somewhat. The old magic could protest as much as it wanted, he decided, but it would not stop him. He hefted the chest onto his shoulder before straightening up and strolling out of the labs, ignoring the odd looks that were thrown his way as he walked past the guards. Normally he would not allow such a thing to occur, but it was a special occasion. They would get a pass just this one time.

From then on, the chest simply sat pressed up against his desk. It slowly became buried by papers and other bits of old technology that he had picked up from his various rambles through the research facilities. It drew many a stare from his numerous visitors, yet only Ravus seemed to question it being there.

“Have you even opened that thing yet?” he asked one evening after resorting to pacing while he waited for Ardyn to read and sign the damn proposal he’d brought with him over an hour earlier.

“Curious, are we?”

“I cannot help but wonder why you do not open something that caused so much of a stir.” He paused in his pacing. “Do you even know what lies within?”

“I have a vague inkling, yes. It is nothing that will be of any real use to the empire and its aspirations though, I can assure you of that.”

“And yet it still remains shut.”

Ardyn peered at the young man over the top of the page. “Not trying to insinuate anything I hope, young Nox Fleuret?”

Ravus rolled his eyes and continued to pace. “Merely an observation.”

Very observant indeed. Whether it had been intended or not, there was a point in his subtle dig at the Chancellor. Why had he waited so long to open it if he seemed so sure that he knew what was inside? He did not feel fear, yet he remained hesitant in taking this final step. Maybe, just maybe, he was the slightest bit nervous about what he might uncover. He almost laughed at the thought.

The moment he was alone again, Ardyn locked the door and hastily swept the accumulated pile off the top of the chest and onto the floor, not at all caring that he would have to reorganise the lot once he was done. The smallest part of him doubted that this would even work, yet regardless he held his hand out towards the longsword, the blade lighting up in thin streams of blue before fading, the lid opening with a soft click. He smiled bitterly; even an old box had shunned him, but just like the rest of them it still bent to his will.

He dropped to his knees and carefully lifted the lid, eyes widening in surprise. Letters, the entire chest was filled to the brim with letters, folded perfectly, all of them dated and sealed with deep red wax wax. Ardyn’s hand hovered over them, wondering where on earth he should even begin with such a number. He settled for one of the top ones and sat back, thumb breaking the seal as it slid underneath and the page falling open.

 

_“Ardyn,_

 

_Grandfather finally passed through to the beyond today, his old age had finally caught up with him. His memory still failed him in the end. He asked for you in his final moments, wondering if you were going to be there soon like you’d said you would be. He didn’t remember what had happened, why it had happened. It was for the best in the end, to let him rest with the sweeter memories of our family._

_Father is not handling his passing well. He has become reclusive and refuses any food and drink that is brought to him. Mother is trying her best to help, but it’s clear that she is struggling too. I think it brings up thoughts of her own parents. We can all see she’s at her wits end and we don’t know how much more she can take, but we just don’t know what to do anymore._

_I still miss you dearly even now. I still desperately wish that fate had not brought this upon us the way that it had. But there is nothing more than can be done. All I can do is continue to hope and pray that wherever you are, you are at peace._

 

_\- Somnus”_

 

Ardyn flipped the letter and scanned for the date. Four years to the day after his supposed death at his brother’s blade. All that time had passed, and he had still been dedicated to writing all those letters. It had been a way of venting at one another suggested to them by their uncle in their youth; they were to simply write their feelings down and not show the other what it said. They had always gone to speak about any issues after, but Ardyn had never kept any of the ones he’d written. All of them had been burned once they’d passed their use, casting his negative emotions into the flames with the pages. It was a practice he’d stopped some time during his nineteenth year, he had assumed that Somnus would have done the same at some point as well.

Yet here sat all the evidence to the contrary. Hundreds and hundreds of handwritten pages, some torn from anger, some that stopped halfway through sentences that were never finished but were sealed regardless. Parchment discoloured from the stains left by blood and long dried tears, handwriting shaky and a mess of blotches. Letters that told of their father’s passing, of their mother, the birth of Somnus’ child. Endless prayers that Ardyn was at peace in the afterlife and was forgiven for his actions. Letters that weren’t even addressed to him, pleading to the Astrals for an answer he would never get.

“You always were so childish, brother,” Ardyn sighed. “I almost expected better of you.”

Perhaps against his better judgement, he set about sorting them, a multitude of piles growing around him. Sometimes he would pause if a particular date caught his eye, cracking the parchment open to see what had happened. He knew that his family was gone, that they had been gone for a long time and had died knowing their son was an abomination, but the knowledge of their passing still struck at something deep within him. It was a dull heavy sensation that made it feel like it had just happened, that his dear mother had passed only a mere couple of weeks ago. Those letters in particular he refolded and put to one side, unsure of what he was even going to do with them after.

Ardyn sat there for hours, too engrossed in his task to hear when people came knocking on his door with more nonsense for him to read through. He was vaguely aware of one of the voices asking if he had taken the chest from the labs and if he had any intention of bringing it back soon. He gave no answer to any of them. As he picked up the last of the letters, he heard a brief frustrated sigh from outside, followed by silence as he opened it up.

 

_“My dearest brother,_

 

_Would it perhaps be bizarre if I were to say that I cannot wait for your coronation? I already know for certain that you will make a most wondrous king and that you shall help bring nothing but peace and prosperity, but I am excited to see it all begin for real. This is a day that we have all been eagerly anticipating. Just promise that you will not allow the power to go to your head and forget all that we’ve done for one another over the years. Nothing will be able to go wrong with you leading us into the future. Of this I am certain._

 

_\- Your most faithful subject, Somnus”_

 

There was a smell of burning in the air, something wet and sticky dripping down onto his fingers allowing a fine coat of ash to settle. He remembered such excitement all too clearly. He didn’t need to read the date to know when it had been penned. Three days before the Crystal had deemed him impure, three days before he had been rejected and turned upon by his own family and people. The chest began to crack and splinter before collapsing in on itself, a wave of heat lifting his hair and covering it in splotches of cinders as the rest of the letters ignited around him in a brief but brilliant blaze. They had outworn their use and outstayed their welcome. He flicked the ash from his hair as he made his way to the door, unlocking it just as a young intern had raised her fist to knock.

“Oh! Ch-Chancellor Izunia!” she stuttered, jumping back in surprise. She looked as if she hadn’t quite expected him to answer.

“There’s a terrible mess that’s formed inside, be a dear and fetch someone to clear it up, would you?” was all he said he strode past into the dark corridor.

 

~

 

Not a single soul stirred as Ardyn sauntered his way through the ruins of Insomnia, rocks skittering from their places as he climbed over the remains of buildings and walkways. The daemons had long taken shelter in the shells of what remained and the shade of the underpasses, cowering from what few beams of sunlight that managed to break the clouds. Some peered out at him from the dark, flinching and retreating further whenever he glanced in their general direction. They could sense his unnatural aura; they instinctively knew that whatever they were, he was much much worse.

But these pathetic daemons were not the cause for his impromptu visit. No, his cause lay within one very specific part of the Old Wall. The oldest part of it to be precise. Ardyn came to a stand still before the statue of the Founder King, one of the few things that remained untouched amongst the chaos. It stood proudly and tall, sword resting between his hands, face shielded from the world by his helm. For several moments, Ardyn merely stood there staring up at it, briefly wondering how it all would have been had he been in his brother’s place as intended. Then he began to pace.

“A romantic to your very end, it would seem,” he started. “I am surprised that you would continue something so childish for so long, my brother. Long past it being necessary. And such drivel you wrote too! Such useless prayers of safety for the one you slaughtered so mercilessly.” He chuckled to himself. “Of course I suppose my own words are just as meaningless here, for you do not even have the courage to bare your face and look your greatest regret in the eyes.”

Ardyn had never expected a response, he hadn’t come seeking any kind of answers. In fact he had almost counted on nothing happening, which was why his skin began to prickle as the aura of another began to fade in. One that was unfortunately very familiar to him. He did not have to turn far to come face to face with the shimmering image of not the Founder King as he anticipated, but of Somnus. Long dark hair tumbling over his shoulders, grey eyes clouded with dark circles and slowly twisting around a ring on his finger. He looked just as Ardyn remembered him, withering and tired. Nothing at all like one would expect a king to look.

“Am I truly so retched that you must look past me?” Ardyn sighed. “Will you heave in disgust just at the sight of my face?”

The corner of Somnus’ lips barely twitched upwards. “And I suppose you must have nought better to do with your time than to make such a journey and cast stones.” He pulled the ring free from his finger and began to toss it between his hands. “You discovered the chest then, I take it.”

“It was uncovered, yes.”

“And you also must have opened it, if you are throwing such specific insults at me.”

“What can I say? Curiosity can get the better of even myself. They were an interesting read, but I never was much of a fan of fiction.”

“Fiction,” Somnus repeated, the word bursting free on his breath. “Do you truly think so little of me to believe that my love for you was false? For _you_ , who I admired above all else for so very long?”

Ardyn began to circle the spot where his brother sat. “For one who claimed to be my “most faithful subject”, it was rather easy for you to slide that blade between my ribs all those years ago. Does that sound like any kind of love you to?”

It must have hit home hard, because Somnus was suddenly on his feet and straight into his brother’s face. “I tried to save you,” he hissed. “I did _everything_ I could to try and relieve you of your pain. To save you from the scourge that took from us who we cared for the most. It may have corrupted you, it may have help give birth to this grudge, but don’t you _dare_ accuse me of not having love for you.”

Ardyn took another step closer, leaving no space between them. Somnus could see no warmth left in those amber eyes of his, there hadn’t been any in millennia. They held only the colour of stained glass that was tinted with a creeping dark. “It doesn’t matter what you say now, little brother.” Ardyn’s voice was much softer now, a gentle whisper that carried the stench of Insomnia’s ruin. “It doesn’t matter how you try to justify or comfort yourself with such pointless actions, because all that counts is how it ended. And in the end, you failed. They may forever hail you as the Founder King of Lucis, but you already failed so many.”

A grim smile split Ardyn’s face, the familiar foul dark of the Starscourge claiming his features and coating his skin with thick rolling drips of corruption. It seemed to emanate from him, drowning out what little light had managed to float down to the surface. Somnus found himself beginning to choke, his vision fading as he reached up to clutch at his chest and throat. He struggled to stand, and quickly found himself back within the stone of the Old Wall, no longer an icon of strength and protection but a prison that seemed to pull him downwards. All that he could see was murky, yet somehow Ardyn’s image remained clear through it all.

“And believe me, you will continue to fail.” Ardyn’s voice was both distant and ringing directly in Somnus’ ears at the same time, an odd sound that pecked at his sanity. “The corpses of your beloved home, those that still cling to the last slithers of daybreak out in the deserts and wetlands, the boy you so desperately pin all of your hopes to. In time they too shall see, that they were wrong to believe in the man who was nought but second choice.”

Ardyn could feel Somnus struggle, could feel him try to fight and swim his way back up to the surface. He knew that the scourge would hold him steady until it was time for him to be of use. A simple act by his own standards, which now left him alone once again, returned to the one constant of his miserable existence. An odd peace that washed over him in waves just outside the fog of the dark. His last thoughts as he turned and left his brother screaming alone were those of trying to remember just which of his pockets he’d dumped his car keys into. It wasn’t until he’d reached the borders of the city that he realised he’d left them in the engine. He already knew he wouldn’t be surprised if someone had helped themselves to it in his absence.


End file.
